Zalia woke up with a yawn and stretching before getting up. She felt surprisingly rested for having slept on a stone floor with very little padding. She definitely needed to find the closest river and wash herself though, something for later in the day.
Walking out to the other room she found Glemp still hard at work, staring at a flask as some liquid dripped into it,
"Good morning, what are you doing?" Zalia asked.
"Research, Zalia of the snow, yes," Glemp replied.
"Alright well I'll be back in a few hours. I've got a gift for you that I'd like to give before I leave for the human.. realms for a bit," she replied, walking out the door.
Zalia made her way back to her blind and gathered all the Ironfur rabbit skins she had collected, 10 all in all. She also deconstructed the blind, taking back her tarp, rope, bag and sleeping bag. She then made her way back to Glemp.
Walking into Glemp's house again, Zalia dropped the hides on a bench,
"These here are yours, aaaand,"Zalia said, as she pulled out a few bunches of herbs from her bag, "these are yours too. Maybe now you have a whole bunch you won't need to be so careful with your experiments!"
"Yes, no, yet still I will be," Glemp replied, "I brought this for you, yes."
They held up a deep red root covered in a brighter red almost bark-like residue.
"It is, yes, good for fire, heat. Comes only from closest to the lake below, yes," Glemp continued, holding up a few more pieces.
"Oh wow, you really know how to treat a girl. Everybody loves a magic fire root, right?" Zalia said, taking them with a gleam in her eyes.
"No promises I won't accidentally set myself on fire though," she added, looking down at it with a grin.
Zalia took the sleeping bag and tarp off her shoulders and folded it neatly into her bag now it was herb free. She added in the roots as well, folding them into one of the Ironfur rabbit hides at Glemp's insistence. She still had a healthy supply of berries, Frozen Heart, Bitterbalm and Snow-leaf, all of them in an already prepared state in her pouch since they took up less space that way. She had no doubts that if she spent long enough down south she would have to find something else to swap some of them out for though,
"Time to go then, if I don't make it back assume I died fighting some mythical beast in a heroic fight to save an orphanage or something," Zalia said, shouldering her backpack and picking up her unstrung bow.
"No, no, Glemp does not know what orphanage is and neither will you die, no," Glemp replied.
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"What makes you say that?" She asked.
"Yes, because these lands are much more danger then south, yess," Glemp replied.
"Well isn't that just wonderful. Don't worry, I'll find a way to make them so anyways, byyeeee," Zalia said as she walked out.
The first thing she did was make her way towards where she knew the closest stream was. She found that the heat of the mountain didn't really bother her much anymore and neither did the cold of snow. It was still cold but not something dangerous to her if she went without her layers and layers of clothes. She quickly washed up before turning to face the south and beginning her journey.
Zalia didn't really know what to expect from the south. Glemp didn't know much and she didn't fully know if she was even in the same world,
"Huh, what a funny thought. Of course I am, there was just an unexplored mountain of mythical creatures sitting in the snow up here as well as magic," she thought.
Discounting the theories that she had lost her mind or was suffering some kind of mental issue and was actually passed out in the snow back where the 'explosion' had happened, she didn't totally rule out the possibility of another world. However unlikely.
Zalia travelled for three days before finally making her way out of the lands laden with snow. During the nights she dug into the snow and secured her tarp over the top to form a kind of burrow to sleep in. She had done as much herbing as she could along the way, gaining a few levels,
Congratulations! Flora identification has reached Tin 8.
Congratulations! Preparation has reached Tin 9.
Congratulations! Harvester has gained two levels reaching Tin 9.
It wasn't a lot but every bit counted towards getting to Iron rank. She now knew from the poison resistance that she would need to get each ability to Tin twenty.
The forest was starting to thin out as Zalia came over the top of a hill to look outwards on a landscape below her. Stretching into the distance was a rolling plains dotted with trees and bushes, wild animals of sorts appearing and disappearing in the distance. A large wild cat of some type was chasing down what she swore was an Ironfur rabbit, though it was hard to tell from this distance.
What caught her eye the most though, was the two relatively large squads of armed and armoured people. Each was arrayed in a defensive formation, arrows flying over the front lines to hammer into the shields and armour of the other. She saw lines of warriors, moderately armoured with sword and shield, a few plate armoured knights on horses and some lightly armoured archers at the back. It looked like only one side had knights, the only cavalry she saw on the battlefield. All in all it looked like one side had about a hundred people, the other side looked like it had twenty or so more. Another thing that caught her eye about the battle was the magic being thrown about on each side of the battle too. Some people who she assumed to be mages dressed in cloth were shooting fire, ice, earth and all sorts of varied magical attacks at each other across the armies, much like the archers.
While she couldn't see a whole lot of details from the distance she was at, Zalia could see two flags flying above each army. One side had red and yellow colourings on it and the other had dark green and brown ones. The red and yellow flag side was the one with both the number and cavalry advantage.
Seeing the battle kind of supported the different world theory for Zalia, since she didn't see any way of this sort of thing happening in her world without it being documented. As the two front lines of the armies got closer over the course of a few minutes, one side suddenly surged forwards with a resounding battle cry, the other side quickly following. The armoured knights on horses charging around the flanks of their formation and heading for the mages of the other. The two sides collided with a crash of shields and steel that she could hear from her viewpoint, the battle beginning in earnest,
"Of course I find a peaceful race of cool as hell lava mage goblins and my own people are warring with each other, as usual," Zalia muttered.